shirt什么意思A Brief History of English

2021年1月19日发(作者：kaller)

A Brief History of English
N
o understanding of the English language can be very satisfactory withoutanotion of the
history of the language. But we shall have to make do with just a notion. The history of English
is long and complicated, and we can only hit the higl1 spots.
不了解英语的历史很难真正掌握这门语言，然而对此我们只能做到略有所知。因为英语的 历史既漫长又复杂，
我们只能抓住其发展过程中的几个关键时期。

At the time of the Ro1nan Empire, the speakers ofwhat was to become English were
scattered along the northern coast of Europe. They spoke a dialect of Low German. More
exactly, they spoke several different dialects, since they were several different tribes. The
names given to the tribes who got to England are Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who are referred to
collectively as Anglo-Saxons4.
在罗马帝国时期，散居在欧洲北部沿海的居民说一种西部德语的方言， 这就是英语的前身。更确切地说，由
于隶属于不同的部落，他们说的是几种不同的方言。这些后来迁移到 英格兰的部落被称为盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和
朱特人，现在则被统称为盎格鲁
-
撒克逊人 。

Not much is known about the arrival ofthe Anglo-Saxons in England. We do know,
however, that the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were a long time securing themselves in England.
Fighting went on for as long as a hundred years before the Celts in England were all killed,
driven into Wales, or reduced to slavery. By 550 or so the Anglo-Saxons were firmly
established. English was in England.
这些部落何 时迁移到英格兰的，我们没有掌握确切信息。但是据我们所知，在很长一段时间内他
们为自卫而战。与凯 尔特人的战争持续了一百多年，直到英格兰境内的凯尔特人不是被杀，就是被迫流
亡到威尔士或沦为奴隶 。到了公元
550
年前后，盎格鲁
-
撒克逊人才定居下来。英语从此来到了英 格兰。

It is customary to dividethe historyof the English, language into three periods: Old English,
Middle English,Modern English. Old English runsfromthe earliest records-i. e. seventh century
- to about 1100; Middle English from 1100 to 1450 or 1500; Modern English from 1500 to the
present day.
我们习惯上把英语的发展分为三个时期：古英语，中世纪 英语和现代英语。古英语时期从最早的
历史记载即公元七世纪到
1100
年；中世纪英 语时期从
1100
年到
1450
或
1500
年；现代英语时 期从
1500
年至今。

When England came intohistory,itwas dividedinto several more or less autonomous
kingdoms, some of which at times exercised a certain amount of control over the others. In the
sixth century the most advanced kingdom was Northurnbria. Two centuries later, Wessex, the
country of the WestSaxons, becamethe leadingpower. The most famousking ofthe
WestSaxonswas AlfredtheGreat, who was famous not only as a military man and adm1n1strator
but also as a champion of learning. He founded and supported schools ar1d
translatedorcausedtobe translatedmany books from Latin into English.
根据最早的历史记载，当时的英格兰被分裂为几 个享有一定自治权利的王国。在一定时期，其中
的某一个王国对其他王国实行一定的统治。公元六世纪， 最强大的王国是诺森伯里亚。两个世纪之后，
由西撒克逊人建立的威塞克斯王国成为了领袖，其最富盛名 的国王叫阿尔弗烈德大帝，他不仅是一个卓
越的军事家和管理者，还是个大学问家。他出资建校，而且亲 自动笔或请人将许多拉丁语的书籍翻译成
英语。

In the military sphere, Alfred's great accomplishment was hissuccessful opposition to the
Vikinginvasions. The linguisticresult was a considerable injection ofNorse into the
Englishlanguage. Norse was at thistime not sodifferent fromEnglish asNorwegian or Danish is
now. Probably speakers of English could understand, more or less, the language of the


newcomers who had moved into eastern England. At any rate, there was considerable
interchange and word borrowing. Examples of Norse words in the English language are sky,
give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sly, crawl, scowl, take, and thrust. There are hundreds
more. We have even borrowed some pronouns from Norse - they, their, and them.
在军事领域，阿尔弗烈德大帝最大 的成就是成功抵抗了北欧海盗的入侵，结果造成了古挪威语大
量进入英语。当时的挪威语与英语比较接近 ，就像今天的挪威语和丹麦语一样。以英语为母语的人或多
或少能听懂来到英格兰东部定居的新邻居使用 的语言。来自古挪威语的英语单词多达几百个，包括
sky,
give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sky, crawl, scowl, take, thrust
。甚至有些代词也
是来源于古挪威语的，如
they, their
和
them
。

In grammar, Old English was,much more highly inflectedthanmodern English is. That
is,there were mote case endings for nouns, more person and number endings for verbs,a more
complicated pronoun system, various endings foradjectives, and so on. OldEnglish nouns had
four cases-nominative, gen1tive, dative
，
accusative .Adjectives had five
–
all these and an
instrumental case t-day English has only two cases for nouns
–
common case and
possessive case. Adjectives now have no case system at all. On theother hand, we now use a
more rigid, word order and morestructurewordstoexpress relationships thanOld English did.
在语法上，古英语的曲折变化远远多于现代英语。古英语的名词有四种格变 化，即主格，所有格，
与格和宾语；形容词有五种格变化，除了以上四种还有工具格。而现代英语中，名 词只有两种格变化，
即普通格和所有格；形容词不再有格的变化。而另一方面，与古英语相比，现代英语 使用更为严格的语
序和丰富的结构词来表示句子成分之间的关系。

In vocabulary old English is quite different from Modern English. Most ofthe Old English
words are what we may call native English: that is, words whichhave notbeen borrowed from
other languages but which have been a part ofEnglish ever since English was a part of Indo-
European1. Old English did certainly containborrowedwords. We haveseen that
manyborrowings were coming in fromNorse. Rather large numbers had been borrowed
fromLatin: cheese, butter, bishop, kettle, angel, candle, priest, martyr, radish, oyster, purple,
school, spend, and so on. But the great n1ajority of Old English words were native
only about 14 percent are native.
在词汇上，古英 语也与现代英语有诸多不同之处。古英语中的绝大多数单词如今被称为英语本土
词，即自英语作为印欧语 言的一部分起就存在的，而不是从其他语言引入的词汇。虽然古英语中也有一
些外来词，除了古挪威语之 外，还有不少词来自于拉丁语，如
cheese, butter, bishop, kettle,
angel, candle, priest, martyr, radish, oyster, purple, school, spend
等。但是古英语的主体
是英语本土词，而这些词 只占现代英语词汇的百分之十四。

Sometime betweenthe years 1000and 1200various important changes took place in the
structure of English, and Old Englishbecame Middle English. The political event which
facilitated these changes was the Norman Conquest. In 1066, led by Duke William, the
Normans crossed the Channel and made themselves masters of England. For the next several
hundred years, England was ruled by kings whose first language was French.
大约在公元1000
年和
1200
年之间，英语的结构发生了重大变化。这些变化是由一个历 史上称为
诺曼底征服的政治事件造成的。
1066
年，威廉公爵带领诺曼人渡过英吉利 海峡，占领了英格兰。在此
后的几个世纪中，英格兰一直处于法兰西国王的统治下。

Great numbersofNormans came to England, but they came as rulers and landlords. French
became the language of the court, the language of the nobility, the language of polite society,
the language of literature. But it did not replace English as the language of the people. There
must always have been hundreds of towns and villages in which French was never heard except